Posted in Online Publishing Strategy	August 23, 2008

How to Give Away Content and Get More Subscribers, Additional Product Sales and Higher Profits in Return

Mequoda Summit "Online Editorial Strategy " Session Review:

In this rapidly evolving new media world, where the consumer is in control and has more information product options than ever before, publishers need to offer multiple media platforms to remain competitive.

Discover how top B2B and B2C publishers have used the Internet to sell traditional information products, like magazines, newsletters and books, plus add new high margin products such as webinars, membership websites, downloadable books and other new media platforms to build loyal customer relationships.

Also learn why giving away the same content that customers once paid for is no longer an option – it's a publisher's new circulation marketing program.

If you are still asking yourself these questions, then you will have a lot to
learn in this session:

• How can publishers use the same intellectual property to both create products that users will pay for, and use it as webpages, newsletters, podcasts, and other types of free content, in order to build an online audience?

• When does premium editorial content become a commodity?

• When should it become part of a publisher’ s online marketing mix?

• How much content needs to be repurposed online in a search engine-friendly manner?

• How does that happen? Who on staff should do this kind of work? Writers? Editors? Webmasters? Circulation managers?

• Is there a time delay between when the material is published in print as a paid product, and when it should appear on a website as a free or promotional product?

• What constitutes an "evergreen" information product that can be used indefinitely?

There is no one right answer to any of these new challenges. There are usually three or four or five right answers. We predict confidently that as your content ages, it's going to become free.

But "one size fits all" doesn't apply here. Don't bring your publication online and launch a website without a clear editorial strategy for how your paid content will get recycled as online content and become part of your operation's audience development program.

This all about building business rules and then challenging them. You must constantly and continually challenge the rules to assure that they are the best practices to be following today.